I’ve just posted a longer (draft) version of Architecture’s Dysfunctional Couple: Design and Technology at the Crossroads, a paper that I wrote and abridged for the forthcoming International Journal of Design Education, Volume 7.

Gehry's Stata Center at M.I.T. (image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MIT_Strata_Center.jpg)

I’ve just completed a summary and critique of the latest LEED reference guide (v4) for newly constructed “green” buildings. This is the third such critique that I’ve posted online: my first such attempt was back in 2007 for LEED version 2.2, and my second summary was posted in 2010 for LEED’s 2009 edition. I’ve also posted a table with links to the various LEED sections (“categories’) within the three critiques.

Here’s a sample of my critique from the v4 Introductory section:

U.S. buildings actually produce relatively little CO2, mainly by burning oil or gas for heating and hot water. The big generators of global warming gases are not buildings, but rather the coal-burning electric utilities. By including the CO2 emissions from electric power plants in the category of “buildings,” LEED essentially lets the electric utilities off the hook — their contribution to global warming is barely mentioned in the reference guide. The reason for this is clear: LEED has no interest in threatening the infrastructural basis of corporate profitability by challenging the cheap supply of energy. In fact, LEED is not interested in any form of regional, national, or global planning that might actually address the questions it raises. Rather, it’s ideology is consistent with that of the corporate entities it serves so well, providing as it does a branding tool to validate their “sustainable” and “green” efforts: according to LEED, one must tap into the corporate desire for profitability, and put into motion the miracle of “markets” to solve all problems, one building at a time. In spite of LEED’s claim that the nonresidential (i.e., corporate) “green building portion of the construction market” has achieved a 35% market share in 2010, the planet continues to lurch closer and closer to some sort of disastrous climate crisis, global poverty persists, and most workers still “lead lives of quiet desperation.” But as long as the LEED brand grows, these counter-indications won’t dampen the spirits of the pragmatists in the USGBC (the U.S. Green Building Council is the not-for-profit organization that created the LEED rating system) or call into question their vision of a voluntary, consensus-based, market-driven program.

I recently found the type-written original copy of my first “scholarly” paper, written in 1983 and rejected for publication in the Journal of Architectural Education. I still think it explains quite a bit about architectural fashion, competition, and the peculiar type of architectural pedagogy that results. I’ve put the whole thing online here.

You’d think it would easy to put a hole in a floor of a building, but it isn’t. The building code (here I’m talking about the International Building Code, or IBC, latest 2009 version) is organized so that code enforcement people can check whether plans for buildings are in compliance with the code, rather than being organized so that architects can figure out what is or is not possible.

image of hole in floor

I made a calculator to help designers figure out whether their proposed holes, connecting two or more floors in a building, are in compliance with the 2009 IBC (similar to earlier versions). I also provide a more detailed discussion of the logic behind making such holes, with an invitation for those more expert than myself to clarify some puzzling code issues.